Charlotte's Web

The morning's foggy start left every spider web coated in diamond droplets of dew. These gorgeous webs are truly works of art. I believe that some of them are made by Argiope, and others by orb weavers (Araneidae); several webs had zippers, while others did not. It doesn't help matters any that the spiders won't always come out and show their faces and the patterns on their backs to make identification easier!

In North America, Argiope is commonly known as the black and yellow garden spider, zipper spider, corn spider, or writing spider, because of the similarity of the web stabilimenta (that's the part of the web that looks like a zipper) to writing.

One of the funnest parts of taking/making photos of webs, spiders or no spiders, is the bokeh, isn't it? I took my camera and held it at different angles to get different pretty, blurry backgrounds. In this shot, you can see the very start of some oranges in our trees. Just a tiny whisper: autumn is coming!

Some of the webs I found were wound around wild parsnip plant seed heads. Wild parsnip = look but do not touch! The largest of the webs are made by the females. Male spiders build much smaller webs next to or within the outer edge of a female's web. A male spider will gently pluck the strands of a female's web to issue a romantic invitation. Isn't that adorable?

I rode around the neighborhood on my bike and discovered numerous webs, but none of them were more impressive than this one, which I found in our own yard. It was located along the top of the hedge by the milkweed patch, which is a favorite hangout of all manner of bugs. 

Good planning, huh? Surely she will eat well! In my travels, I did not see any web that was larger or prettier than this one, or any better spider, though she would not show me her face. There she sits, the Mistress of the Web. I have named her Charlotte!

Our soundtrack song is the Statler Brothers, with Charlotte's Web.